A fool and his money
Supersavers
Bernard Hollowood .
I haven't entered for the BBC's Nationwide Supersave competitions, chiefly because 1 don't want cameramen nosing into my home and into secrets that I hope to patent before long. But I see no reason why I shouldn't disclose some of the minor economy measures that we have adopted.
If you have lots of patience and average co-ordination between hand and eye you can ...
I. Make Your Own Tea Bags.
The tea merchants no longer advertise the quality of their tea but the number of holes in their tea bags — rather like the mint neople who are so proud of the hole in their sweetmeats. There is no need to pay good money for tea bags. Take a sheet of rice paper from any old volume of the novels of Walter Scott, fold it to make a square pocket, run the sewing machine along three sides and borrow a hat-pin from your mother or gran.
Then stab the pocket systematically about 5,000 times until the entire area of the pocket is perforated. You now insert the loose tea of your choice and sew up the open side of the bag.
You will be amazed by the flavour of the liquid emerging from the perforations of a genuine home-made tea bag; and the satisfaction arising from 'something attempted, something done' is incalculable, A warning, Don't use ordinary newspaper: it will disintegrate in boiling water and make Your cuppa lumpy and unpleasant.
With practice you will find that your work with the hat-pin speeds up quite naturally. After only a month I find that I can achieve no fewer than five perforations per second, 2. Save money by bulk buying.
Mr Wilson has told us that the economic crisis will last for at least two years. During these years prices will rise inexorably and the sensible shopper should try to buy two years' supply (of the goods usually bought annually) at today's prices.
In December I bought eighty Christmas cards, double the number we need, and at Easter I shall buy fourteen chocolate eggs for my seven grandchildren. I already have a goodly stock of birthday presents wrapped and ready for eventual distribution.
Don't make the mistake of buying in book tokens: they are not index-linked and a token that would exchange for a novel costing £3
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